It all began with a Dare
by PotterHead13
Summary: Many generations after the destruction of all the specters from Cittàgazze, a girl is dared to enter the haunted tower of the angels. She accepts, but what will lie lurking waiting for her inside? This Will Be Brought Back To Life Sooner Or Later
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This is the first real fic that I've written, and I hope it does justice to Pullman's wonderful series. Please review.

Disclaimer: As is obvious, I am not Phillip Pullman, I do not own Cittàgazze, the tower of the angels, or anything else that comes from canon. I'm only entertaining myself, and getting writing tips from this.

**The Dare**

"Come on! I dare You!"

"Wimp!"

"Loser!"

Marie looked up at the Torre degli Angeli. She thought she could do it. They'd only dared her to stay in there for five minutes. So what if it was the most haunted building in the entire world. She was not going to admit to being frightened.

"Fine then!" She yelled over the choruses of insults. "I will. But I won't stay in for just five minutes!" She didn't know what was making her say this! She didn't want to have anything to do with the tower, yet for some reason she felt almost drawn to it now. "I'll stay in there for a whole hour!"

Everyone around her gasped. Typical whispers of "She's crazy!" or "Did I hear right?" swept through the crowd. Well, she might be crazy, but she did speak clear enough. "Yeah! I'll stay in for a whole hour!" She said clearly. "And," she continued, powered by a foreign force. "I'll bring something back to!" She practically screamed.

"Someone give her a watch!" a kid yelled. A black wristwatch was thrown towards her, and she caught it in one hand and slipped it on carefully.

"It's set to go off in an hour!" The boy who had thrown it yelled.

"Nobody ever comes out of there!"

"I wonder if there even is anything for her to get in there! I thought it was totally deserted!"

Marie started walking briskly towards the tower of the Angels. Half way there, she turned around and gave the group of kids a thumbs up and a confident smile. "See ya' in a hour!"

She continued to the entrance, and pushed open the rickety wooden door that had been decaying for the last hundred years. Marie knew this place hadn't always been haunted. It had once been a wonderful place, and it still had signs of splendor around it.

She stepped in, wooden planks creaking under her bare feet. She heard a round of clapping in the distance. "Did they really think I'd chicken out after touching the door?"

_Probably, _that nagging little voice in her head said. She rolled her eyes. Sometimes she wondered if her conscience was more sarcastic than her. Her mind flicked back to the story her father had told her, which apparently not many people knew.

What very few people of this age knew was that this wasn't the original Torre degli Angeli. The genuine one was destroyed about eight generations ago, during the time of Marie's great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents. It had been destroyed by the government after a time where there were hundreds of thousands of spectres around the city. But then, all the buildings around it had been destroyed, and everyone grew worried, sop they decided to rebuild the tower as a sort of apology, and thanks as the spetres had all disappeared then also.

But it wasn't that great. The whole thing was an almost exact replica of the original tower, but everything was wooden, rather than whatever it had been before. But now, it stood totally isolated from the rest of Cittàgazze, and even though it was considered sacred by most adults, all the kids were convinced that it was haunted.

She looked around. The one kid who had said that the place was empty was about a thousand miles off. The place was crammed, mainly was junk that people had just thrown in haphazardly. She inhaled deeply. Well, she wasn't scared yet, and she didn't think she'd get to terrified in the next few minutes either. In fact, she felt much more confident than before. She felt as though nothing could go wrong.

As she continued looking around, a weird image came to her from nowhere. She saw the room she was in, but with another small addition. There was a lion cub in the middle of the floor. She almost laughed, as she realized that had to be impossible. There weren't any lions Cittàgazze! How absurd! There were some in the far away country of Africa, but not here! She shook the vision out of her mind, and made for the stairs heading down. Hey, she had an hour, why not explore the whole place?

Another random fact resurfaced in her mind as she inched her way down the rickety stairs. The basement was the only thing that was from the original Tower of Angels. She smiled. "There's better be a trophy down here for my bravery," she said smugly.

_I'm sure there is,_ the voice in her head said. Marie couldn't help but roll her eyes. "Whatever." _I think there's something in the corner,_ the voice insisted. Marie blinked. "Go look."

Marie jumped, and started breathing hard. That was a voice... But she was the only one there. It was that voice. The voice that had been in her head so many years, guiding her along was there. Was her conscience coming to life? No, that was below impossible!

"W-w-w-ho i-is th-th-that?" she stammered, standing still right in the middle of the room.

"_Me ya' idiot."_

"I don't think y-you can exactly can me an i-idiot..."

"_Marie... Marie... Marie..."_

"What?" Marie choked.

"_It's me."_ Marie started looking around trying to find the source of the voice. She couldn't see anything. _"Up," _the voice encouraged. Marie ran her tongue over her lips and looked up and saw a beautiful Bald Eagle starring back at her. A weird shiver crossed over. It wasn't one of fear, or hate, or any feeling she could recognize.

"It's about time... I hate guessing games just as much as you do." Marie was transfixed. What... Who... How... and all those other 'W' questions that you learn in primary school. She'd like to just scream and run away, but she had a weird feeling about this bird.

"_Yes, I am the voice in your head."_ It said both out loud and in her head.

"W-w-w-hat?" Marie managed to stutter.

"I expect you wonder who I am, why I can talk to you in your head, where I came from, what I'm doing now, and why I haven't contacted you sooner." The eagle asked.

"Well, you can obviously read my mind... Why are you asking?" Marie said, finally getting her voice and sense of sarcasm back.

"Well, I'll answer the important stuff first. Who am I? Well... I'm you." Marie raised her eyebrows.

"Well... I'm a human... You're a bird... You can't-"

"You don't believe in can't do you. And as a matter of fact, I'm no bird... right now." Within the space of a blink, a cat was now sitting in the spot of the eagle. Marie took a few steps back and realized she was closer to the wall than she had thought. Her back hit the wall, and she pushed back, wanting to get farther away from the creature.

Then, the creature turned into a bird again, this time a dove. "And I can assume just about any other form you'd like, but I won't go through that. And as for exactly what I am... Well, I'm a daemon." It watched Marie's already pale face pale. "Oh no, not the silly kind you have here. A daemon," he said slow and clearly. "Although I guess I can't explain that without explaining everything else." He took a deep breath and turned back into a bald eagle. "I'm just going to be frank. You're not normal." Marie couldn't help laughing. "I don't know how best to say this, but you're mother's the really abnormal one." Marie's face plainly gave away the obvious disbelief at the statement. Her mother was a perfectly normal, run of the mill sort of person. There was absolutely nothing abnormal about her.

"Oh, no silly!" The eagle made a sound like laughter. "She's not your mother! Your mother... Well..." it paused trying to figure out what to say. "Well... She's a witch from another world."

Marie slid down the wall at that. She sat, knees curled up to chest trying to figure everything out. The bald eagle flew to her side, and changed into a mongoose. "Yeah... it's all true."

Marie shook her head, sending white blonde hair flying across her face.

Another bird flew into the room, this one a glossy black raven that landed next to the mongoose shaped daemon. "You must go Sopiaron." The raven nudged Marie's daemon softly. "You know what you must do."

Marie looked in wonder and amazement at the other creature she could only assume was another daemon. "But I don't," she managed to croak.

"Well, you'll find out soon," the raven said in a calming voice. Marie took a deep breath... All this for a dare... She was surrounded by talking animals for goodness sake!

"You'll find out soon," her daemon urged. "We've got to go."

"Go where?" Marie asked loudly.

"Out," Sopiaron answered simply.

"Out where?"

"Out of here." The raven took a few wing beats and hovered just above Marie's still curled up legs. She took a deep breath and stood up. "What ever you say," she answered lamely. She had given up all hopes of struggling back, and now passed everything off with the most common excuse.

'I'm dreaming...' That's the only thing that can be happening.

Yeah… Dreaming was the best way top pass all this off. And hey, who'd interfere with a nice dream anyways?

Sopiaron and the other daemon stopped in mid flight. It took Marie a few more steps to understand exactly why they had. She was standing in a dark, cold, dusty basement, but about a square yard or so in the air was completely different. She was looking into a patch of a dark forest.

The crow daemon fluttered through, unhesitantly, but Marie still stood, thinking her legs would collapse under her soon.

"Come on," Sopiaron urged her, not in his typical sarcastic voice, but an earnest one. "We'll be fine, I'm sure of it." He sensed her worries. "Don't worry," he said in a soothing voice. "Just think of it as another part of the dare."

Marie smiled against all she was feeling. She had the feeling that this thing -no, he- wouldn't lead her wrong. They'd be safe. They were one.

She took one last deep breath of the musty air under the Torre degli Angeli of Cittàgazze, and stepped through into a totally foreign place.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter two**

A/N: I'm very surprised (In a good way of course) that I got a great response for the first chapter. And I'll say this. I have no intention to give this story up, at least without warning. But you'll have to bear with me, I'm a slow writer, and I've got very limited time to write. Keep up the reviews. Constructive criticism is always loved.

Disclaimer: Well... You see, there's this person called Phillip Pullman. He owns this wonderful stuff... I don't.

"We're stopping here."

Marie looked up. She had only been half, or rather much less than half, way paying attention as the daemons lead her on. She still had no idea of where she was, and was looking forward to a nice explanation while sitting around a warm fire.

"Yes, it's time to build camp."

The speaking of the two strange creatures soothed her, despite the one had such a low raspy voice, and the other a slightly higher raspy voice. She's really like to know how she managed to come from the Tower of The Angels, into some wilderness place that she knew nothing about.

She wasn't stupid, she wasn't the smartest, but defiantly not stupid, and she knew that this place wasn't like anything on the earth she came from. Marie set to making a fire, and the two daemons scouted out the area.

Marie had sort of gone into a silent trance as they had been walking through the foreign world. She hadn't been thinking of anything, other than walking. But then again, in a forest that did take a lot of concentration.

As she managed to get a small fire up, the daemons came back. "It's fine now. Nobody's anywhere near here."

"Who'd be in the middle of a forest like this one?"

"Well, I'm sure a lot of creatures would live in a place like this."

"Remember this is a different world."

"So then... What world is it?"

"It doesn't exactly have a name, but the creatures that live here are very similar to you. Humans as it were." Marie nodded absently.

"That nice and all, but what are we doing here? Am I supposed to find my mother or something?"

"Well, I can't tell you that much," the witch's daemon sighed. "In fact, right about now is when I must leave you. Good bye." And before Marie or Sopiaron could do anything, the raven had flown off.

"Well... What a help?" Marie started, looking expectantly at her own daemon. "What do you think we should do?"

"Not hang around here for to long. I think we'd better get out of here."

"But there's a nice fire here, and I think we're safe."

"But it wouldn't be good to linger here if we didn't have to."

"Can't I at least get some rest? It already feels as though I've been walking for ages."

"Yes... I suppose some rest would do you good."

"Watch the fire." Marie commanded. She watched Ron transform into a lion, and sit alert, livid eyes scanning the grounds.

She knew she could trust him to keep her safe. She had no doubt that he would defend her, them, and whatever. She still had yet to grab this whole companion/one concept. But she still had a hard time falling asleep, and she didn't think it was due to the ground she was on.

It couldn't be called a pleasant relaxation by any stretch of the imagination. She knew she had been tossing and turning the whole time, and was pretty sure she had hit my head on a root at some point. But when she awoke it wasn't because of her own discomforts.

Marie felt a sharp pain on the side of her leg. It was as though a large cat's claws had just raked across her skinny leg. She sat up and cursed quietly, but quickly realized there was nothing anywhere near her. She found herself a bit further from where she figured Ron was, but couldn't really tell, as the fire was out, and it was still pretty dark under the canopy of leaves.

She felt another stab of pain, in her lower arm this time. She gasped in pain 'what was this?' She wondered.

She heard a similar cry of pain from where she had left Ron near the fire. Was this him, was this all his pain? She stood up, and as soon as she had the advantage of height, even if it was a mere 5" 5' she could see what was going on near the ashes of the fire.

Her daemon was being attacked! She couldn't even tell what was attacking it, but she could tell there were a more than a few of them.

Sopiaron was changing shape rapidly, hoping that would throw them off, but it didn't. She realized what they must be now.

They had to be some sort of shape shifter. Ron became a wolf, and so did the other things. They kept mirroring his forms. He continued fighting as a snow leopard.

She had no clue what she was doing, but within a few seconds, she had crossed to where the fight was, and tried to intervene. Tried... I really tried. She had no clue what to do. They all knew she was there, but they didn't react in any way whatsoever. She felt like she should be doubled up in pain, those blows hurt so bad, but she knew she couldn't just fall, Ron would give up.

And then what would happen? They'd probably kill them, or maybe take them prisoner. Marie couldn't let that happen, could she?

Since she didn't know what to do, she probably did the worse possible thing. As they were fighting as clouded leopards, she just put in a hand, and pulled Ron out of the mess.

Or rather, attempted to. She could tell exactly which one was him, the one in the middle, and the bloodiest, but she couldn't seem to reach him. Her hand plunged in, but it just couldn't touch any of them.

"Ron" She cried! "Ron, what can I do?" Her eyes were tear filled, every inch of my body aching, but she knew she had to save him somehow.

There was of course, no answer to her question. How could there have been. There was another change, and now they were all foxes. Her hands went in again, and made contact with some random shape shifter. She did manage to fling it to the side however.

And by some miracle, her hand made contact with Sopiaron rough fur. It felt so wonderful to have him back with her. She felt him change into a small weasel against my chest.

"It's OK." He whispered. "I would've gotten them! I would've beaten them!" he panted.

I managed to get a few off while you were still asleep."

"Hush," she whispered soothingly.

She managed to look up at where the fight had been seconds ago... The shape shifters were no more. Vanished... Gone... All within the space of about ten seconds. She couldn't figure out if that was a good thing or not.

"We have to get out of here!" They said in perfect unison. Ron jumped out of Marie's arm, becoming a horse in the process.

"Get on," he shook out his mane, and bent down for her to get on.

"I've never ridden..." She said hesitantly.

"Too bad, just get on!" He whinnied. Marie swung her leg over, and emidatly felt Ron stand back up to full height, and take off.

He didn't seem to be going as fast as she figured he could at first. He must've been able to sense her insecurities. But as she grew more confident, he grew swifter, and soon they were at a full gallop.

Maire loved the feel of the wind blowing her hair back in the wind, and the rush of the air passing her face. It felt as though she was the most Supreme Being in the world.

They went on like this for several hours, before Marie realized the gallop had slowed to a slow trot.

"What's the matter Ron?" Maire asked.

"Nothing... I'm no more tired than you... I've just..." he paused. Marie figured she knew what he meant. He was afraid of where they were going... No, that wasn't it. "I just feel like... Like I've been here before!"

Marie looked around. She had the same feeling, but... "Come on Ron, forests are always like this! Aren't they? Everyone I've ever been was... All the same, row after row of trees, which seem never-ending."

"But... I swear something's the same..."

"Well, staying here won't do anything! We might be able to find a river... Or something else that'd lead us to safety! Or at least that'll lead to a way put of here."

Ron made a neutral sound, but was soon of running.

Marie slipped into the motion, thinking all the while, _We'd better get out of here! _


End file.
